Chapter 326: Who Dares to Cross the Principal

Fang Hong and Zhang Hongsen chatted for a long time, moving from the agency cafeteria to the office.

The main reason was that Zhang Hongsen had suddenly seen the hope of China's film industry rising from Yutu, which would greatly benefit him.

Once Yutu could produce sci-fi blockbusters, it would fall right within his term of office — pretty nice.

Still, the preferential policies for Yutu had to go through verification and procedures; they wouldn't come down right away, so they could only wait for now.

But that didn't stop Fang Hong from sending out invitations to China Film Group leaders Zuoshandiao, La Peikang, and others; Beijing Film Academy Principal Zhang Huijun, Xie Xiaojin, and others; Film Association chairman Li Xuejian and others; and the Film Critics Association chairman and board members.

Inviting them to attend the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the Yutu Digital Film Production Base.

Either don't do it, or do it big — do it with prestige, do it with grandeur. Being petty wouldn't suit Yutu's style.

After receiving the invitations, these people found it very strange — why suddenly hold such a ribbon-cutting ceremony? It was only a few days away; why hadn't they heard of Yutu having anything like this before?

No way around it — the Principal came up with this on the spur of the moment, and there were only 7 days until the ribbon-cutting ceremony, so many things couldn't be prepared in time.

The groundbreaking day also needed people arranged on-site, so suddenly there was a lot to do.

One word from the leaders, and the subordinates run their legs off!

But it was all worth it — it could boost Yutu's influence and let those above see they were doing real work, with great benefits.

Not only did he send invitations to these people of status, he also sent one to film superstar Liu Tianxian, asking her to attend the ribbon-cutting.

Other celebrities weren't invited — they weren't qualified enough!

Liu Tianxian was also quite speechless; just tell her in person, but he insisted on having someone deliver an invitation, which read:

Dear Ms. Liu Tianxian, greetings!

Looking back over the four years of Yutu Film Industry Group, we are deeply grateful for Ms. Liu's tremendous help and strong support, which has allowed our company's work to proceed smoothly. Looking to the future, we are full of confidence.

Our company will hold the Digital Film Production Base groundbreaking ribbon-cutting ceremony on April 15, 2013, and we await your honored presence.

The wording of the invitation was like a template downloaded from the internet, then copy-pasted — utterly lacking in sincerity.

"A bunch of fancy nonsense." Liu Tianxian said of him.

"It's a formal invitation, and you're still not happy? Ordinary people aren't even on the invitation list — you should feel honored." Fang Hong said.

"Honored, my foot. Let me see who you've invited." Liu Tianxian pulled over his notebook and looked at the name list above.

Looking at that long string of names and titles — all people of status, honor, and official position in the film and television circle — her eyes couldn't help but widen.

"Wouldn't it be inappropriate for me to go?" she said, surprised.

"Why wouldn't it be appropriate?" Fang Hong countered.

"Not a single celebrity — all are people of importance. No matter how I look at it, I'm not the same type of person." Liu Tianxian looked at him.

"Why wouldn't you be? I say you are, so you are. Who's in favor? Who's against? Who dares to cross our Principal?" Fang Hong said, full of himself.

Liu Tianxian rolled her eyes at him, speechless: "Can you stop showing off?"

"Ah, it's fine. You're my wife — accompanying me is perfectly normal." Fang Hong said.

"Who's your wife?"

Liu Tianxian shot back, then turned away, a smile blooming on her face.

This man wanted to introduce her to a higher-end circle, to get her face known — his intentions were good.

Maybe one of them would be a judge and just give her the award.

Some awards allow foreigners to win, like the Huading and Huabiao Awards Awards.

Yang Ziqiong was nominated for a Huabiao Awards Award, and Guoji Dan won a Huabiao Awards Award before changing back to her Chinese citizenship.

Whatever the award, as long as it's an award, it's fine. With Liu Tianxian's status, it's very hard to win awards — it's not a matter of how well she acts.

"Like" was about to start filming, and recently Liu Tianxian had been very busy — the main creators had to touch base from time to time, hold meetings, rehearse, and so on.

Xue Xiaolu and the screenwriters would also explain the plot and characters to them.

So she didn't have much time to spend with Fang Hong.

Just as Yutu was preparing for the ribbon-cutting ceremony, film and television stocks rose as scheduled.

"Film and television stocks explode across the board, multiple institutions buying heavily."

"Film and television stocks surge on heavy volume, new account openings spike, multiple brokerages 'stay open through the holiday'!"

"Huayi and Guangxian stocks go viral, new accounts surge, password retrievals... 'hundred-million-yuan households' are back!"

"It's been 3 years — my parents' 3 accounts are all back to break-even!"

"."

For a time, such news kept pouring out.

No way around it — with this policy released, Huayi's market cap jumped from over 8 billion to 10 billion, and was still climbing. Anyway, Fang Hong remembered that this year Huayi would rise to over 30 billion — wildly out of control.

No matter how awesome he was, hammering Huayi nonstop couldn't withstand the policy!

Guangxian Media also rose from a market cap of over 7 billion to 10 billion, and was still climbing.

Some who knew the inside story in advance were going to make a killing. Chen Zhixi also told some of her close contacts to buy Huayi and Guangxian stocks.

She bought some herself — making money isn't shameful.

Fang Hong didn't buy. If he did, there simply weren't that many Huayi or Guangxian shares on the market for him — the volume was too small.

A few million, or tens of millions, was of no use to him, and it would take effort watching for when to sell — too much trouble.

For Tesla's volume, to avoid causing waves, he had to spend half a year slowly buying from institutions on the secondary market — let alone Huayi and Guangxian's volume. Tossing in a few tens of millions of dollars would definitely cause waves and push their stock prices up.

Even if Tesla's stock price was low, its market cap was 3 billion dollars — times seven and it exceeds 20 billion.

Tesla had now risen to over 5 billion dollars, a market cap of over 35 billion yuan.

Moreover, he had to hammer Huayi from time to time, and when he got carried away he'd take Guangxian down too — who knew when that would drag both companies' stock prices down.???? The previous two years were like that: the situation had been great, then suddenly he hammered them down — wouldn't that be a loss?

He'd have to pull out before hammering, so it wasn't worth the trouble.

Riding this east wind, many film and television companies began preparations for going public — generally, preparations take one to three years, so they had to start early.

Meanwhile, Bona was also envious and started its privatization, wanting to delist from Nasdaq.

Privatization and delisting require buying back the shares they've released, which may need more money and time.

Yu Pangzi was also pretty wronged—he thought going public in the United States would boost prestige and bring in more capital, but ended up getting nothing and having his development slowed down.

He's constantly mocked by the Principal for lacking ability—it's frustrating!

But Fang Hong wasn't going to let him delist so easily; he called Meng Jun, who was far away in the United States.

Right now, Meng Jun is still buying shares of Nvidia in the United States.

The call connected quickly: "Hey, Lao Meng, check which institutions hold Bonna's stock."

The two were already very familiar with each other.

Most of Bonna's stock is held by institutions; retail investors hold very little, because U. S. retail investors don't even notice this stock.

When they do buy, they buy shares of local film and television companies—or the Six Majors!

"Their stock is useless—it won't rise or fall, just limp along. Buying it is pointless, a waste of money and time," Meng Jun advised.

This really is a waste of money; you could at least gamble on others—he'd seen Tesla rise a lot.

Bonna is pure garbage among garbage.

"I know that. Just find out who holds their stock—I need it," Fang Hong said.

"Alright!" Meng Jun agreed.

The Principal always acts so unpredictably; normal people can't understand his thinking.

Fundamentally, Bonna's business overlaps with Chang'e Technology's; even if we acquire their equity, it won't help much.

That day, Fang Hong arrived at Chang'e Technology's gaming division. About ten days to half a month ago, Fang Hong had ordered Zhang Nan to restructure management, fearing leaks.

The time has now been long enough for some effect.

The gaming division never had many people—only about two hundred—small-scale by corporate standards, easy to adjust.

In a large office, row upon row of programmers silently tapped keyboards. Fang Hong walked along the edge corridor, accompanied by three others.

Zhang Nan, Li Min, and another man named Wang Yuanming, a greasy middle-aged man.

He was the Technical Director of the D Game Engine, previously working at NetEase as a core member of NetEase's 3D engine team.

He was one of the developers of the BigWorld engine used by NetEase.

"We installed surveillance in every corner of the company. For places we couldn't install it—like restrooms—we installed Signal Jammers and Timers, so we control employee slacking time and prevent leaks in unmonitored areas," Zhang Nan said.

"Installing Timers is a bit inhumane!" Fang Hong looked at the programmers—they had less vitality; they used to be noisier.

For the company to become formalized, it must go through this process.

Installing Signal Jammers is understandable, but Timers are hard to swallow—drink too little water, stool dries up, can't defecate, halfway through, the Timer goes off.

He couldn't even imagine the scene—he'd experienced it himself once in his past life, not drinking for hours and being unable to go.

"Work is heavy now. We must compress all project timelines—it enables faster responses and increases work efficiency," Zhang Nan said.

Fine, Fang Hong said nothing—developing an engine had taken two years; for a leader like Zhang Nan, that was unbearable.

The other two showed no reaction—whatever was demanded, they executed. After all, they were the leaders; the coders were the ones who suffered.

"Any other measures?" Fang Hong asked.

"Employees are forbidden to take Work Laptops home. We've deployed Enterprise Anti-Leakage Software—blocking file exports, burning discs, Bluetooth, infrared, serial ports, parallel ports, USB, wireless network cards—all data must be fully encrypted."

"We've also installed Firewalls, Intrusion Detection Systems, and Intrusion Prevention Systems," Zhang Nan said.

"Any effect?" Fang Hong asked.

"We'll wait until the next game update, after fixing the vulnerabilities, then judge the situation with external hacks," Zhang Nan said.

"We must firmly eliminate hacks," Fang Hong set the tone, agreeing with this approach—strike leaks from within first.

Zhang Nan nodded and added: "But recently, revenue has dropped, and we've started countering plugins. Without revenue, the company suffers—our cash flow can't keep up."

This was Fang Hong's original strategy—tolerating skin-mod plugins on the market.

"No problem. Plugin proliferation isn't good. We can run our own events to distribute skins for free, or let players earn them through effort—matching, ranked play," Fang Hong told Zhang Nan, and also Li Min.

This would give players more motivation to play—the game needs high online rates and group formation rates.

Both nodded, understanding—it would be another major adjustment, and a positive one.

Players could obtain Skins without spending money.

Skin designs were handled by dedicated artists—there was never a shortage; not a big issue.

But Fang Hong ignored Zhang Nan's point about cash flow—this wasn't the place to discuss it.

Fang Hong asked the middle-aged man, Wang Yuanming: "Director Wang, how's the game engine development going?"

"Still in design. The underlying technology is hard to develop—we have too few talent in foundational tech," Wang Yuanming said.

After programming and design comes testing and optimization; now we're in the second phase.

Fang Hong didn't understand: "Then hire people. If none in China, hire from abroad."

This made Zhang Nan open his mouth but hold back!

(End of Chapter)